Elevating community voices
Community-engaged research (CER) involves researchers and community partners working together to advance community goals and science. It is one way to ensure that research is relevant to and actionable for those it affects. CER projects frequently involve Indigenous partners and community goals that align with the UN SDGs: public and environmental health, sustainable resource management, and equity across a range of dimensions.
To transform the landscape of community-engaged research, Canadian Science Publishing sought to identify and remove barriers preventing Indigenous partners from participating in the publication process.
Questions from authors about how they should acknowledge the contributions of Indigenous Knowledges and research partners in their manuscripts prompted Canadian Science Publishing (CSP) to act. Although there is literature on how to conduct CER—including well-documented research methods and Indigenous-produced guidelines—CSP recognized a need for author guidelines on how to report CER. As such, guidelines were developed in consultation with stakeholders including Indigenous and non-Indigenous researchers, who helped identify additional opportunities to make publishing policies and practices more inclusive of diverse contributions and contributors.
One area in which the opportunity for change arose was in recognizing that traditional authorship policies can be inflexible for Indigenous researchers. Standard academic definitions do not fully account for the diverse contributions made in community-engaged projects and research involving Indigenous Knowledges. By fostering constructive dialogue around participation in research and publishing, Canadian Science Publishing was able to make important changes to key policies and processes. These efforts led to the development of new tools and resources, and increased submissions from community-engaged research projects as well as Indigenous-led research contributions.
What actions were taken?
- Revised Authorship Policy and Developed New Author Guidelines: After extensive consultation, new guidelines for reporting community-engaged research and projects involving Indigenous Knowledges were established, and authorship policies were adjusted to better reflect diverse contributions.
- Defined Best Practices: After assessment of community-engaged research methods, best practices were developed, and training was provided to editorial teams handling relevant submissions.
- Removed Barriers to Publication: Developed alternatives to standard publishing workflows and requirements, (which were designed for academic researchers) to facilitate participation of community and Indigenous partners. For example, a lack of email access for some authors and reviewers and the absence of plain-language reviewer guidelines for non-academics were identified as barriers to online research submission. Solutions were developed to accommodate these constraints.
- Amplified Indigenous Voices in Research and Publishing: In addition to consulting with Indigenous researchers and organizations, Indigenous and CER experts were recruited as editors to identify how publishers could incorporate best practices in CER and enable participation of community partners in the publishing process.
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